It was seconds into watching the first episode. “Oh no. Everyone’s going to hate this.” The new season of The Bear, which is now out for all to binge, following last year’s somewhat confounding, yet fierce, backlash against the show. To my mind, it was the same exact series that became a pandemic hit and awards’ darling; to viewers, it might as well have sent producers door to door to step on your big toe and then spit in your face. That confounding backlash seemed to have sprouted from the impression that this show, about the chaos involved in opening a restaurant, became too chaotic. Give us cacophony once, and it’s music. Give us it three seasons in a row, and it’s a din that we simply cannot stand for. Season 4 of The Bear, now available to stream, might be a lesson in “be careful what you wish for.” From what I gathered, people had become exhausted and exasperated that this show had Ted Lasso’d itself, meaning it amplified its original conceit—a broken person tries to heal himself in the chaos of restaurant work—and cute-ified it. The endless cursing at each other was supposed to be endearing, because it’s apparently a love language for these characters. And the incessant montages of food ingredients and people walking down Chicago streets and sighing: That’s how you knew it was prestige. My own take is that people realized that this show that hit some sort of nerve during those dark COVID times—sad man makes food and broods—maybe wasn’t the thing they wanted to watch forever. But the outsized backlash seemed ridiculous when The Bear was basically giving them the same exact show they claimed to like the season before. Which is why I’m so struck by this season. It’s so different from the maelstrom chef nonsense of the previous seasons. And yet so particularly hits on everything that people mocked those episodes for. My one sentence review is that it’s a spectacularly acted season about the struggle to give one’s self permission to pursue their own happiness, and repair the relationships that are necessary to make that happen. My one word review is: sappy! | 